


The Difference Between Fine and Good

by larrystylickson



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Canon, Gen, Sexual Assault Mention, Statutory Rape Mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 19:52:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9919778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larrystylickson/pseuds/larrystylickson
Summary: Archie seemed to have been fucking things up a lot, lately. Ever since his dad found out about, things, everything has been a little been strange. His dad can’t look him in the eyes anymore, and he hasn’t spoken to his mom in months. It’s almost like even when he’s surrounded by people, he’s all alone.But Archie is fine.Things are fine.





	

Archie liked to hang out with Jughead because he didn’t ask about it. When he was with Betty and Veronica, they always wanted to talk about it. They thought that if he talked about it more, he would “heal”. They were always trying to get him to push deeper and think harder and, well…Archie thought that was a load of bullshit. He was fine. Things were going okay.

He just needed to not think about it for awhile. Jughead was perfect for that. Jughead didn’t give a rats ass what was going on in Archie’s head. Jughead wasn’t going to ask about Archie’s life, as long as Archie didn’t ask about his. It seemed like a fair trade. Right now, all Jughead wanted to do was play MarioKart. 

“Shit. Shitshitshitshit! Fucking! Blue Shell! Fuck!” Jughead shouted at the sky.

“That’s what you get for riding in first, Jug. You gotta pick a strategy, like me. I ride just behind the last person until I get the bullet, and then I’m shot up to like, second. Then I ride right behind the first guy until I hit him with something at the end. Then I win. It’s a good strategy.”

“You think too much, Archie.” Jughead was digging into Archie’s second bag of sour cream and onion chips.

“Those were for sharing, you know.” Archie groaned at his friend. He loved Jughead, but he’d become a bit of a mooch lately. It’s almost like Archie hadn’t had a bite to eat in months if he was around his friend. Jughead kept shoving chips into his mouth.

“Well, they’re not anymore.” Jughead burped. In Archie’s face, too.

“You’re disgusting.”

“You could just go hang out with your girlfriends.” Jughead teased. “Where’ve they been, anyway? I feel like every time we walk by them you drag me in the opposite direction.” Jughead paused the game, putting his controller down to fully look at his friend. 

“So what?” Archie avoided meeting Jughead’s eyes. “They’ve just been getting on my nerves lately.” 

“What?” Jughead teased. “You can’t stand having so many adoring eyes on you at once?”

“No. Fuck you.” Archie unpaused the game and started ruining his strategy, because all he could focus on was taking any way out of this conversation. 

Jughead, seemingly shocked by the profanity, paused the game again and grabbed Archie’s game controller out of his hand.    “What the fuck, man?” Archie question, finally looking at his friend. 

“How about what the fuck to you, Archie? Why the hell did me mentioning Betty and Veronica bother you so much? They’re supposed to be your friends. Hell, I’m supposed to be your friend!” 

“You don’t get it, Jughead. I don’t want to talk about it.” Archie tore his gaze away.

“I don’t get what? I have absolutely no idea what the fuck you’re talking about! I didn’t do anything!” Jughead was raising his voice a little bit too high.

“Shut up! You don’t ask me about my life, and I don’t ask you about yours. That’s how it is, Jughead. If you don’t like that, leave.” Archie reached over Jughead to grab his controller, and went back to playing the game.

“I didn’t say anything wrong, Arch.” Jughead grumbled. 

“Oh yeah? Then why don’t I bombard you with questions, huh? Why is it that I haven’t been to your house since middle school, Jughead? Why is it that you’re always out at Pop Tate’s until the middle of the night? On school nights, too? Why is it that one day you just stopped mentioning your family, Jughead? Why don’t you ever talk about Jellybean anymore?!” Archie looked up from the TV only to see Jughead shaking, eyes swelling up with tears. “Wait. Shit. I didn’t mean…”

Jughead was out the door before Archie could finish his sentence.

Archie seemed to have been fucking things up a lot, lately. Ever since his dad found out about, things, everything has been a little been strange. His dad can’t look him in the eyes anymore, and he hasn’t spoken to his mom in months. It’s almost like even when he’s surrounded by people, he’s all alone.

But Archie is fine.

Things are fine.

——

School wasn’t fine. Archie was getting good grades, sure, but he was falling behind on his music ever since there, well, hasn’t been a music teacher. His independent study block had also become an apparent problem to administration.

“I don’t know, can’t I just keep it as a study block?” Archie begged his counselor. 

“Archie, you know that we can’t give you a study block. Sophomores can’t have study blocks. You know that.”

“Can’t you make an exception? Special circumstances?” 

“If we give you a study, we have to give any sophomore that asks a study. We can’t set that precedent, Mr. Andrews.”

Archie didn’t say anything. He knew it had become a losing battle.

“Why don’t you sign up for creative writing, hm? It’s during that block and not too difficult. If you worked hard enough, it might even be able to pull up your whole GPA. And I know that friends of yours in that class, that Jughead boy?”

Archie just nodded, pulled his backpack over his shoulder, and went to lunch.

——

Lately, Archie had mostly been eating alone. Lucky for him, Cheryl had been having a lot of extra River Vixen practices, so Betty and Veronica weren’t around much. Jughead hadn’t spoken to him since that afternoon at his house, and, well Archie didn’t really know what was up with Kevin. Sometimes he would come sit with him, sometimes he wouldn’t. Most days, he had just been sitting alone with his laptop, working on his creative writing. Archie surprisingly liked the class, and the teacher was being really nice about letting him catch up. The writing reminded him of songwriting. It felt like a release. So he didn’t mind taking the class, even if Jughead still wasn’t talking to him in class. 

So most days, it was just Archie and his laptop. It was nice when Kevin sat with him, though, because he didn’t think Kevin knew. Sure, he might have picked up on something, but nobody had bothered telling him the whole situation. 

Luckily, Kevin hadn’t asked yet.

“Hey, Arch.” Looks like Kevin had nothing else to do today.

“Hey.”

“What are you working on?” 

“Ah, it’s nothing. Just, like creative writing stuff.” Kevin paused his chewing when Archie said that.

“You’re in creative writing?” 

“Oh, uh, yeah. When Ms. Grundy skipped town the counselor didn’t want me to have a study block so he stuck me in creative writing.”

“Oh. Makes sense. They’re really strict about that, I tried to get a study block this year because half my courses are AP, but they didn’t budge. That sucks that you have to take another class because Grundy leaving, though. Like, that’s not your fault that she got up and left.”

Kevin’s words burned in Archie’s mind like a wildfire. 

“I gotta get to class, Kev.” Archie shut his laptop and starting walking away, fast.

“Why? Class doesn’t start for like, twenty minutes.”

Archie kept walking. He didn’t go to class, either, he walked straight home.  
——

When Archie got home, he didn’t turn on the TV, or the Xbox. He didn’t know what to do. Usually, when Archie gets home from school, he makes a snack, or watches Netflix. Archie didn’t feel like doing that, though. He had never skipped a class before. He knew it was just woodwork, and it didn’t really matter, but.

Archie didn’t feel right doing anything but sitting on the couch and staring at the wall. He didn’t feel like he deserved to do anything else.

For the first time in a long time, Archie let his mind wander to Ms. Grundy. 

Where was she? Did she go somewhere new? Did she go back to her abusive husband? What name was she using? Archie felt wherever she was, she needed to be safe. He couldn’t stop thinking about how it was his fault. If Ms. Grundy went back home, if she was with a man who hit her, and it was Archie’s fault…

He couldn’t stop thinking about her. He was trying to forget, but everything changed that first car ride home. Archie feels electric shocks up his body when his gets touched on the upper thigh, because that was the first place she touched him. Everything about her was mesmerizing. She treated him like an adult, rather than just some down on his luck kid who’s mother left and dad doesn’t come home. When he was around Ms. Grundy, Archie became a whole new person.

That’s why Archie needed to know where she was. If she wasn’t safe, he owed her enough to save her. He needed to find where she was, know if she was going to be okay. Archie figured once he knew she was okay, maybe he could move on. Maybe he could be okay, too. 

The first thing he did was Google her name. He spent all of five minutes on the first page of Google before he remembered Ms. Grundy wasn’t her real name. 

It felt strange typing “Jennifer Gibson” into the search bar.

The first things that came up weren’t anything interesting. Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts, LinkedIn. It took three pages of Google search results until Archie found anything that might be of any interest to him.

“The State v. Gibson”

It was the first thing on the page that Archie saw, and he almost didn’t click on it. He almost scrolled past. He thought that it would be ridiculous that that court case would have anything to do with Ms. Grundy. Though the more he thought about it, he knew he had to click on the link. It could possibly be a case to do with her husband’s abuse, and would give him clues about where to find her. He convinced himself of that before clicking the link. 

“In May 2013, Gibson was indicted on two counts of statutory rape, and one count of sexual misconduct. The charges stemmed from allegations from a 15-year-old high school student that Gibson had made sexual advances towards them. This lead to an investigation that would reveal Gibson had engaged in sexual intercourse with two students when they were under the age of consent. Gibson waved her right to a jury trial, and the matter was tried before the bench.

On September 17th, 2014, the court found Gibson guilty of all charges and she was sentenced to 300 hours community service. She was to register as a sex offender for the next 20 years and was no longer allowed within 100 feet of persons under the age of 18.”

Archie felt his heart drop to his stomach. He shut his laptop, unable to read any more. Was that really her? It had to be her. She was a sex offender, apparently. What did that mean, sex offender? Archie had sex with her, did that make him a victim? The words statutory rape didn’t feel right in his mouth, but some part of them knew those were the only words that made sense.

Unable to move, Archie feel asleep on the couch that night.

——

“Archie?” Archie woke up to his dad shaking him. “Archie, what the hell are you doing sleeping on the couch?”

“Oh. Uh, I don’t know. I got home from school and I guess I passed out.”

“Speaking of school, I got a phone call saying you weren’t in last block.” His dad’s comment seemed pointed, but not angry. More curious.

“Sorry.”

“Would you like to tell me why? It’s not like you to skip class.” Archie sat up. He didn’t know what to say. He wanted to tell his dad that he was scared. And lonely. Everything was weird and nothing was getting better. Everything seemed to make him panic. He felt anxious all the time, and every time he passed by the music room it got worse. 

“I…” Archie stopped. He fell forward, resting his head in his dad’s lap. He didn’t cry. He didn’t say anything. His dad didn’t either. His dad stroked his hair and it felt good. In that moment, Archie didn’t feel like he had to be a grown-up all the time. Archie had been an adult ever since the summer, since he grew, since he heard that gunshot. 

Right now, he was just a kid sitting in his dad’s lap.

——

It didn’t take long after that for him to break down. It took creative writing to do it.

The assignment was ambiguous. His teacher seemed to like that. You could write about anything you wanted, as long as it had emotion behind it. You were supposed to connect it to your real life, and pull something from “the deepest part of you”. Archie was going to write about his mom, get the easy pity mark of having his mother abandon him. 

When Archie got around to writing the assignment, it was one in the morning. He really tried to write about his mom. He tried really hard, but nothing came out. It was almost like he didn’t have any emotion about his mom leaving. Archie knew that there was only one thing he could write about that would come out the way he wanted it to, but he almost couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Until he typed the first word. Archie didn’t stop typing for almost two hours. Every feeling, every thought, every emotion went down on his document. By the time Archie finished, it was four in the morning. He submitted the paper over email, not caring in his early morning state what repercussions would come with submitting that document to his teacher. He never named any names in the assignment, and never explicitly said what he was talking about. The entire assignment was written with an outpour of emotion Archie didn’t know he had inside him. However, he knew that his teacher would read between the lines.

After submitting the paper, Archie went to sleep. He woke up a few hours later, heart beating fast. He felt like he was about to explode. It took him an hour of breathing slower and slower to get his heart rate down. His dad took one look at him and said he didn’t have to go to school. Archie spent the whole day panicking about what was going to happen next. To him, to Ms. Grundy, to his dad. 

Archie didn’t want his mother to find out about this and take him away from Riverdale. 

To avoid these thoughts, Archie watched Star Wars movies. The Force Awakens was his favourite. He saw it the year before with Jughead. He thought about that memory. It was a good one. They stayed in the theatre and watched the movie a second time, they loved it so much.

Archie fell asleep to that memory. 

The next day, his dad told him he had to go to school. 

In third block, Archie was called to the principal’s office.

When he got there, he saw three people. The principal, the counselor, and his creative writing teacher. 

Archie knew it was all over.

——

One week later, Archie felt okay. He didn’t lie to Sheriff Keller when he came to his house to ask him what happened. He didn’t tell him everything, but he didn’t lie, which was good. His dad sat at the table too, with a stoic and sad look on his face. Later, when Sheriff Keller left, Archie asked his dad if he was disappointed in him, and he looked even sadder and broke a glass. Archie didn’t know what to think about that.

On the drive to his first therapy session, he began to wonder if anyone has told his mom.

That’s the first thing he tells the therapist. 

The therapist told him that his mom can’t force him to go anywhere he didn’t want to go. Even though he’s a minor he has that right. That’s something Archie didn’t know, but it’s something that made Archie feel safe. The therapist said they didn’t have to talk about Ms. Grundy yet if Archie didn’t want to, so they talked about his mom.

When Archie got home, Jughead came over. They watched The Force Awakens and threw popcorn at each other.

For the first time in a long time, Archie felt good.


End file.
